"Well, Ronan plans to have a stroll before dinner. He wants to walk from the Hotel de Ville across the river to Notre-Dame and across the river again to Place St-Michel, then up Boul Mich, then up Boulevard St-Germain. So I suppose we'll arrive at the Cafe de Flore for about nine. We did the shops todaythey're amazing. It's my second time here in a week. I can't believe it! Ronan bought me this jacket today, right? We went into..."

"Where exactly is the Cafe de Flore?"

I speak a little louder on account of the toilet in the cubicle next to me being flushed.

"It's actually on Boulevard St-Germain too."

Which Metro, idiot.

"Which Metro?"

"I think it's called St-Germain-des-Pres. It's great to hear from you, Julianne. It's a pity you're not here."

"Yes."

"Anyway, when we get settled here in an apartment or something I'll send you the address. It'd be nice to..."

"Send Ronan my best," I interrupt.

After a slight halt in the conversation she agrees to send Ronan my best. "I've told him about you," she avers. "He says you sound fun."

"He doesn't know the meaning of the word."

"Is everything...okay your end?"

"See you later."

Dude.

"Julianne!"

Coldly, I press the 'off button.

56 56.

I feel as if I am moving through a silent film. feel as if I am moving through a silent film.

We are on the Metro, which connects the airport and the city, fleeting through space and time towards the centre of Paris. The train tracks gallop underneath, a calming rhythm. Sylvana is seated opposite, face resting on the palm of her hand, elbow stuck on the narrow window ledge. We don't speak. You can see her reflection in the window, her silent, almost grim-looking profile, which forbids disturbance. I wonder what she's thinking of. The meeting she missed? The employee she meant to fire? Ronan? Nicole? Me?

Sylvana never feels the need to discuss her inner life.

Outside, the sky and the fields glow in a hue of red. The clouds, which seemed puffy and white from the exterior, are now light purple. It's the tinted glass.

Inside, it's as if the carriage is woven out of the French flag: everything is blue and red and white. And clean, modern and stylish. Sitting across the aisle are two Arab women, heads covered with black veils. There's a black man in a suit, with briefcase and glasses. Everyone has bags. We're the only ones in here who look even vaguely European, which is nice for a change. You get so tired of meeting white people your whole life. It's like the only bread you're allowed to eat is white sliced pan. So refined it becomes banal.

The train stops and starts and stops again. It begins to fill up. Some passengers read their journaux journaux, others books, others stare blankly out of the window. One man with a pole-thin head and short, curly hair puts his head back and closes his eyes. Tired people stand up and queue, holding on to the straps or the bars, jostled from side to side by the lurching motion, waiting to get out. Once the train is stationary, the doors clank open, the exchange of sombre human beings is made and the doors clank closed again.

I try to think a little of the evening ahead. Of what I should say, or what approach I should take. But soon I give up. I will know at the time. I lose myself instead in the hypnotic whirr of train motion.

We change Metro at Chatelet Les Halles. We fly through the remaining Metro stations to our destination: Cadet, where our hotel is located. Around the corner, past a boulangerie boulangerie, a patisserie patisserie, a pharmacie pharmacie and an and an epicene epicene, is the entrance to the Hotel Cadet.

We pass through the automatic sliding door into a narrow reception area with a pale marble floor and thin columns supporting the high, slanted white ceiling. To our right are three black leather seats surrounding a low table, a display cabinet with crystal glass objects for sale, a revolving shoe polish machine and a door to the left-luggage room. To the left is a high reception desk shaped into a tall round island, a kind of outpost with a deep hole in the middle. Standing inside the hole is a man in uniform, presumably from North Africa.

He greets us with a cheeky smile, bright white teeth and two twinkly eyes. He hands us forms to fill in. Name, address, nationality, passport number. Luckily my passport contains my maiden nameit was issued before I was married. O'Connor: this is how I shall henceforth be known.

The man points to a rack of leaflets just beside the entrance where we will find maps, museums, opening nights, cinemas, clubs and anything that two fancy-free ladies could hope to find to titillate them on a Friday night, as if that's why we've come to Paris. He is full of good humour and polite laughter, but all we are in the mood for, really, is shutting him up with a smile, which of course he seems to appreciate.

A teenage boy with short blond hair and perfect skin brings us up in the elevator to the second floor. He leads us through a chic, grey-carpeted corridor with ceiling spotlights and modern art prints, and shows us into our room. It is small but impeccably clean. More grey: the headboards and the long narrow dressing-table on which stands a small television. Beneath this is a tiny fridge, concealed in a varnished wooden cabinet. More modern art prints on the walls. I squeeze past the two beds, pull back the white net curtain and open the window. No air enters: we are sheltered by a small courtyard.

I hand the garcon garcon a two-hundred-franc note, which he takes with an oddly formal, boyish ' a two-hundred-franc note, which he takes with an oddly formal, boyish 'merci'. When he leaves us to our nightmare of cramped space, Sylvana informs me that I just handed him roughly twenty pounds.

"I bags the bed by the window," she says.

"That's unfairyou'll get all the fresh air."

"Yes, but you'll be closer to the bathroom."

"You make that seem like an advantage."

"It is if you've got a hangover."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence about tonight."

"Okay, you take the bed by the window, then." She sighs.

"No," says I affably. "Go ahead. You generally get your way."

So she dumps her case on the bed by the window and starts unpacking. She has no respect for people who don't kick and punch and scream for what they want. I'm in no mood for kicking and punching and screaming. At least not yet.

She starts stripping. She's planning on having a shower. Before me. But I beat her to it. Sylvana will now have to make her face up in a condensed, fogged-up mirror.

Fifteen minutes later (after a hot shower which dispenses the maximum amount of steam) I come back out swathed in a flimsy white towelthe largest in the bathroom. She ignores me completely. She undresses and walks into the bathroom seemingly indifferent as to who might see her voluptuous and perfectly naked curves, namely me, and after spending a whole hour inside she walks back out in her black silk lingerie like she's actually planning on going to Club Zed tonight.

She sits down at the narrow dressing-table and begins applying foundation and eyeliner and mascara, indifferent to the fact that she's blocking my view of the TV, as I lean back against my bedhead watching Clark Gable speak French with those odd mouth movements.

I'm in my power-pinstriped suit. I feel I can accomplish things in it. I'm relieved to see Sylvana getting into a downbeat brown suit and dark-green polo-neck sweater. At nine we are ready to embark into the still bright Paris evening.

57 57.

At a quarter to ten I follow Sylvana through the awkward double doors of the Cafe de Flore. Inside is like a busy tea party. The place is glaring with bright yellow light. The atmosphere in this large, box-like, open room is noisy and bustling and intellectual, and I am immediately struck by the soft, bright-red banquettes on which Parisian life is happily chattering. These are fitted in between low wooden partitions on top of which lie salt cellars and baskets of hard-boiled eggs. The yellow-painted, aged walls are almost completely covered with huge old decaying mirrors.

Ornate chandeliers hang from the high, sculpted, dirt-yellow ceiling. In the left corner a wooden stairway curves its way round, upstairs, presumably to the restrooms.

The wooden rectangular tables are patronized by the trendy twenties and thirties. But there are the old regulars too, one tableful of whom is engulfed in a bellyful of conversation with a bow-tied waiter in black and white who has just rolled a pencil from his ear and taken a small notepad from the black pouch attached to his belt.

We are told to wait until a seat becomes available so we stay where we are just in front of the entrance. Recent arrivals are already forming a queue behind us.

"It's nearly ten and they're still not here." I peer around the large room.

"Knowing him, they're probably on a cafe crawl."

Soon we are led to a small red banquette in the far right corner. I climb into the inside seat. Sylvana grumbles a little because she gets to face the wall, so I remind her of who snatched the bed by the window. She orders a 'cafe espresso special Flore' from the menu and just to be different I order tea.

And wait. From here there is a clear view of the door on which my eyes are fastened like bolts.

Our order arrives and we sip in silence.

Nothing happens. Everybody seems lost in conversation. Nobody is taking any notice of Sylvana or me, which makes a welcome change. Everybody is too beautiful in here. I watch one slender woman with large eyes animatedly engage her friend whose long arms are folded on the table and who keeps nodding in earnest. At another table sit a group of students in heated debate.

There's a guy with black leather jacket, scruffy dark hair and a dark half-day stubble sitting reading a book. At the table next to him is another guy with long greasy hair but stunning Brad Pitt features, staring at length into the distance. Every so often he dips his head and scribbles something meaningful in a notebook.

"I'm a bit peckish," Sylvana says.

"You should have thought of that on the plane. The two of them could walk in any minute."

Sylvana: "You expected me to eat that chemically refined chicken and carrot paste, and those gherkin droppings? I don't think so. What about an omelette au crabe omelette au crabe?"

She's reading her menu again.

"That's a crab omelette."

"I know that, Julie, but do you think it's any good?"

"It's one dish I wouldn't touch with an oar."

I idly scan my own menu. On the front cover is printed 'Saint-Germain-des-Pres'. Beneath this is printed 'rendez-vous au...Cafe de Flore', a quote attributed to J.P. Sartre from his Les Chemins de la Liberte Les Chemins de la Liberte. Beneath this is a heavy sketch in pencil of a coffee table on top of which lie a cafetiere, a cup and saucer and spoon, a newspaper, a letter, a packet of cigarettes and an ashtray.

I'm getting this tingling sensation in my gut. I desperately want a smoke so I light up. I start inhaling vigorously. I still don't know what I'm going to say to them when they walk through the door. Perhaps I'll just leave it to instinct.

"I think I'll have the crab omelette," Sylvana says. "I have yet to watch an egg crawl."

The waiter comes over and she points to what she wants, then flips the page of the small booklet-menu and points at something else. And in an excruciatingly doggish French accent she says: "Et: haricots verts frais en salade, s'il vous plait. Oh, et un Mere-un Tuborg s'il vous plait. Merci."

"Oui madame."

"Et pour moi, un cafe espresso double s'il vous plait " "

On impulse, I take out my phone and hold it for a second, and stare at it. I put it back down on the table. Frustrated, I grab the menu and start reading: Croissant au beurre, brioche au beurre, pain aux raisins, pain au chocolat, Minis, tartines beurre... Croissant au beurre, brioche au beurre, pain aux raisins, pain au chocolat, Minis, tartines beurre...

Soon Sylvana's omelette au crabe omelette au crabe and her and her haricots verts frais en salade haricots verts frais en salade arrive, together with the glass of Tuborg beer and my arrive, together with the glass of Tuborg beer and my cafe espresso double cafe espresso double.

She starts delicately gobbling the pukish-looking stringy omelette mix. I pull back from the sea smell.

She's munching away, now, into her dish, trying to guess the meaning of the various entries on the Les Patisseries Les Patisseries page. She's scoffing her crab omelette like a starved dog and simultaneously she is quoting disapprovingly from the dessert section, mock contempt etched on her brow: will she choose a page. She's scoffing her crab omelette like a starved dog and simultaneously she is quoting disapprovingly from the dessert section, mock contempt etched on her brow: will she choose a gateau au chocolat Macao gateau au chocolat Macao for her dessert? Or a for her dessert? Or a millefeuille millefeuille, whatever that is? Or a tarte tatin (en saison)? tarte tatin (en saison)? Or the Or the patisserie du jour? patisserie du jour? Or the Or the cake frais? cake frais? None of these, of course, will do much for her figure. None of these, of course, will do much for her figure.

I slam down my cup, twirl the mobile towards me and input Nicole's number. It's so noisy in here that when she answers all I hear from her is a squeak that vaguely reminds me of my name.

"Where the hell are you?" I shout.

Pause.

"How do you mean, Julianne?"

"How do I mean?"

When I repeat my highly complex five-word question she says she doesn't really understand.

"You're supposed to be in the Cafe de Flore. You're late."

"But we are are in the Cafe de Flore." She giggles, unsure. in the Cafe de Flore." She giggles, unsure.

I pause.

"What are you doing in the toilet?"

"What?"

"Have you finished in the toilet?"

"Julianne, we're not in the toilet."

"Are we talking about the same establishment? The big cafe on Boulevard St-Germain? With the red benches and the large mirrors?"

"Yes. We're upstairs."

"There's seating upstairs? I thought there was just a loo?"

"There is is, but there are tables also. It's lovely here, Julianne. We're having a really nice drink together. He's havingwould you believe ita creme de menthe and I'm having a beer with creme de cassis. We've just eaten prawns and garlic sauce. They were great, though I'm glad Ronan didn't tell me what they were until we'd finished. They have a funny name in French. I'll read it out to you. Listen to this..."

I punch out and put my phone away.

"We're going upstairs, Sylvana. Leave your revolting mobile egg where it is and follow me."

Holding on to the curved wooden bannister rail we climb up the narrow squeaky wooden stairs past paintings of Paris hanging on the stairwell. We squeeze sideways to allow a waiter to pass, an empty tray at his side. We twist round and are now on the first floor. Straight ahead, to my surprise, is a long, narrow room full of people at tables: a banquet of liveliness.

At once I spy Nicole. She is seated on a curved banquette underneath the stained-glass window in the far right corner. She looks wonderful: soft, innocent, glowing, arms folded loosely. She's almost in a kind of watery daydream. Obviously dotty with happiness. She's wearing a loose shirt, the colour of pale-green grass, which accentuates her wonderful suntan. She's in cream slacks. I can see her feet. Enclosing them are sandals with woven gold straps. I can even make out her light-purple toenail varnish.

Her long, goldeny hair is back off her shoulders, exposing her long, dangly Rue de Rivoli earrings.

I advance. Now I can see Ronan's profile. He's reading his paper. Wouldn't you know it: Le Figaro Le Figaro. The paper for the intellectual. The paper for Ronan, the pseudo-intellectual bull-shitter.

Sylvana: "This should be fun."

Nicole says something to him and laughs. He smiles, takes a sip of his green drink and returns to his paper. Nicole hasn't seen us yet, though she's facing this way, still daydreaming.

I advance slowly.

She looks around.